Ticket to Ride is a board game about trains. Specifically, it's about connecting cities by claiming sections of track via matching cards of the same color (or symbol, to give a little help to the color-blind).
The game (published by Days of Wonder) is quite popular, having sold many hundreds of thousands of copies, and it's won a ton of awards, including the prestigious Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) and the first Diana Jones award given to a board game*. There was even a world championship held this year to celebrate the game's tenth anniversary, featuring 25,000 players who were whittled down to 28 national champions (well, two from "North America," that is, the U.S.) for the finals in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. The finals were broadcast over the Internet on Tric Trac TV -- which is how the cheating in the final match was discovered.

The initially crowned champion Erwin Pauelsen of the Netherlands didn't use steroids or even computer assistance. He simply took two extra turns, and not only did his fatigued opponent miss them, but so did the referee. It was a Days of Wonder forum user who pointed out the error (a situation that also occurs in professional golf from time to time). When confronted by DOW, Pauelsen admitted to cheating and surrendered his title to Kenneth Heilfron of the U.S.

* -- Or the only one, if you consider Dominion, a card game, to not be a board game.

If you're interested in modern board games, Ticket to Ride is fun and very, very easy to learn- the computer version (Android/iOS/Win/OSX/Linux) is very good and the tutorial will have you playing the game inside of a couple of minutes.posted by Pope Guilty at 6:38 PM on November 5, 2014 [9 favorites]

oh i'm so excited to delve into this post! i'd be totally down with playing some rounds with some mefites if you find yourself interested - hit me up in memail if you want to set that up. i don't remember if all versions work together but i have android, steam, and xbox arcade.posted by nadawi at 6:46 PM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

My wife and I play this. She loves trains so it was a perfect match. We also play the mobile version.

Be warned, the game has a lot of expansions and they are fun. After our honeymoon to Sweden/Norway/Iceland we got the Nordic expansion.posted by Twain Device at 6:50 PM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

That's...... just astonishing.

Mrs. Mosley and I are huge "Ticket to Ride" fans and have gotten friends and family members hooked. We even had one couple over for dinner and got the game out only to find out that the husband was, whadayaknow, color blind, so the symbols really did come in handy. I've been meaning to invite them over again and introduce a new game to them, but Mrs. Mosley's current favorite game "Quirkle" wouldn't quite work as well.posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 6:53 PM on November 5, 2014

From the "cheating in the final match" link:

Kenneth Heilfron has been officially declared the 2014 Ticket to Ride World Champion and will receive the grand prize of a trip for two nine-day trip to Asia, including three nights on board the Eastern & Orient Express

You can cheat on iOS on iPhone as well when playing against people via multiplay on Game Center. Make your partial move*, leave the game without abandoning** it, open it back up again.

*A partial move is

- looking at one card (picking a face up that is not a wild card, or drawing one card)

- picking three additional route cards to select one, and not selecting any before quitting the game

It's important you do not abandon the game.

No matter what you do, when you return to the game, the cards are undisturbed. If you blind pulled a rainbow, you will do so again.

The advantage to this is: you know one of the blind cards your opponent chooses next (assuming you place cards or draw routes on your "real turn" and or you know what route cards your opponent may pick (something near where you think she is or something they'll have to ignore and take the point damage, or something you can easily block).

** abandon definitively is the in-game term.

Once I figured out one of my 'regular' recurring opponents were doing this I pretty much stopped playing on iOS for the iPhone (iPod is probably the same).

These cheats do not affect the iPad version of the game. I've had people "lose connectivity" on multiplayer iPad games but not sure if it can be used as a mechanism to cheat (those are "live" rather than asynchronous).

I play with a handicap and made a scoring pad to help the board game kids straight ... it's a tough game to keep score on!posted by tilde at 7:02 PM on November 5, 2014 [5 favorites]

Be warned, the game has a lot of expansions and they are fun. After our honeymoon to Sweden/Norway/Iceland we got the Nordic expansion.

My partner and I really enjoyed the Nordic expansion, until uh someone figured out that it's possible to cut the board in two using like five train cars, making it impossible to finish any route between the Helsinki area and the rest of the board.

I mean, it's maybe the best of the Ticket to Ride variations for two players, but under the cheerful exterior it's got a certain chesslike unforgivingness to it, and if you're not paying close attention to all the little tricks that can be played you can very rapidly find yourself in an unwinnable position remarkably early in the game.posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 7:03 PM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

In addition to the number of turns taken, what I'm reasing is that he ended up with more locomotives than mathematically feasible given the number of turns in game. If true, this would be akin to palming a blank tile in Scrabble.posted by pwnguin at 7:11 PM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Ticket to cheat
Double die roll
Sevenposted by Mblue at 7:22 PM on November 5, 2014

Ticket to Ride is an excellent introductory board game, shorter than Settlers of Catan, less vulnerable to the phenomenon where the first players get the best spots on the board, and less vulnerable to randomness deciding you are not winning this time bucko.posted by JHarris at 7:46 PM on November 5, 2014

My friend always wins his games by hoarding cards, waiting until the end to place long swaths of trains. Does anyone have a strategy to beat this? Or are we just doing a poor job of blocking routes?posted by reiichiroh at 7:47 PM on November 5, 2014

What's considered the "normal" or "standard" Ticket to Ride? I want to say I've only played Germany and East Asia (the one played as two-player teams) to my knowledge. USA?posted by DoctorFedora at 7:48 PM on November 5, 2014

I had the Arcade version of this on my Xbox 360, it was loads of fun. Wanted the proper boardgame but it was like a hundred and something bucks in the store at the time. Shame. Anyway, great post!posted by turbid dahlia at 7:55 PM on November 5, 2014

Some say it's cheating, he says his opponent just lost track.posted by Tsuga at 7:56 PM on November 5, 2014 [35 favorites]

It's not as easy to get into and it takes a bit longer to play, but I really enjoy Empire Builder. If you enjoy TTR you might like it.posted by theclaw at 7:58 PM on November 5, 2014 [3 favorites]

My friend always wins his games by hoarding cards, waiting until the end to place long swaths of trains. Does anyone have a strategy to beat this? Or are we just doing a poor job of blocking routes?

Block up Portland Seattle ASAP, as well as San Franciso to LA. Maybe take that orange route north centre and the blue or black four to wall off the white or grey six.

Remember if there are a few players you can double track around some places.

Also, if you can finish by laying out cards first, you can keep him from playing all his cards.posted by Buttons Bellbottom at 8:15 PM on November 5, 2014

My favorite thing about Ticket to Ride is the rule that you either draw cards OR play trains on your turn. It means that on your turn you aren't getting any new resources/information and then taking time to think how you're going to use them while everyone waits. When it's your turn, you either build the thing you were planning while everyone else was playing, or you draw some cards and move on. It keeps things moving and you rarely get "that guy" who takes forever to weigh all his options on his turn.

The thing I'm not so hot about is that there's not a lot of interaction between players. You can block opponents from getting what they want, but other than that, it seems to lack a lot of the human element that something like Catan excels at. I've mostly played the America version, though, so maybe someone has something to say about the other editions?posted by buriednexttoyou at 8:21 PM on November 5, 2014 [9 favorites]

I keep meaning to try TTR. I've played TransAmerica, which seems like a simplified version of a similar idea, but I haven't taken full-dosage TTR. I think I even have it on my iThings due to a sale or something a while back. Clearly, this is a sign I should go do so!posted by rmd1023 at 8:24 PM on November 5, 2014

It's a really fun game with a crazy amount of replay value. I've held off on buying the Android version so far, but if there are enough MeFi-ites to play with, and if it offers an asynchronous mode where you can just play a turn or two a day, I'd definitely be inclined to buy it.posted by tonycpsu at 8:27 PM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

The thing I'm not so hot about is that there's not a lot of interaction between players. You can block opponents from getting what they want, but other than that, it seems to lack a lot of the human element that something like Catan excels at. I've mostly played the America version, though, so maybe someone has something to say about the other editions?

The American version has too many connections between cities to be an interesting game for me, though I'm sure if I had a regular playgroup for it I could learn to see its subtleties. Some of the other maps (most especially Nordic Countries) make blocking much more central to the game as a whole (and so, much more interaction-filled).

Really, though, I suspect that it's like many of the other current breed of eurogames, in that when you start playing, it feels like side-by-side solitaire, but as you gain more experience with the game, it starts to more and more feel like an elaborate duel.posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:53 PM on November 5, 2014 [3 favorites]

When I hear that whistle blowing, I hang my head and cry.posted by Artw at 9:02 PM on November 5, 2014 [5 favorites]

My friend always wins his games by hoarding cards, waiting until the end to place long swaths of trains. Does anyone have a strategy to beat this? Or are we just doing a poor job of blocking routes?

I wouldn't even bother blocking routes - your most basic strategy for the game at all times is to maximize what you get for each turn, so unless you need a certain piece of track, you're just wasting a turn by trying to block. If your friend is hoarding, that pretty much gives you free rein to just place your tracks in the most efficient way possible and get some longer tracks for yourself that are worth more points. You just need to get a good feel of how many routes you can handle.posted by LionIndex at 9:18 PM on November 5, 2014

I've held off on buying the Android version so far, but if there are enough MeFi-ites to play with, and if it offers an asynchronous mode where you can just play a turn or two a day

Ticket To Ride is okay for something that is basically a variation of rummy. (Seriously, that's all Ticket To Ride is. You collect sets of train cards to collect sets of rail lines for your tickets.)

It's a fine entry-level game because there are strategies but it will not overwhelm people who aren't familiar with boardgame design concepts, but the problem is that at a certain point you realize that most of the maps boil down to races to get the optimal "blocking" lines (which prevent a lot of tickets from being completed) and then it's just who got the better cards.

As a train game, it is surpassed by many, many other train games, which are much more trainey. If you're simply looking for the thrill of building routes and delivering goods, the Martin Wallace trilogy of (from least forgiving to most) Age of Steam, Steam and Railways of the World (previously known as the Railroad Tycoon board game) are all superb; if you want to go more old-school, there is Empire Builder and its associated line of "crayon-rail" games, where you actually draw your rail lines on the board in crayon. If you want the traditional heart of train gaming, which is stock manipulation of growing rail empires, Chicago Express is a tight little Eurogame that introduces you to that general theme - and prepares you for the much, much heftier 1830: Railways and Robber Barons, a game that has spawned countless imitators and spin-offs (some of which, like the hard-to-find 1846, improve on it).posted by mightygodking at 9:28 PM on November 5, 2014 [27 favorites]

From the cheater (through google translate): "We also played a best out of three. I had won the first round and the incident took place. During the 2nd match Even if I had lost, I could probably win the 3rd. "

LOL. Best apology ever.

(am colorblind and LOVE TTR for giving those corner symbols. In my first game, before anyone pointed out the corner symbols to me, I proudly laid down a mix of 6 yellow and green cards and started to build my train, while the rest of the table stared at me like I was insane).

(am also *that guy* who built blocking trains for no personal gain, but simply because it was clear it would hurt others, making everyone angry, and thus promised not to do it anymore ever again)posted by jermsplan at 9:51 PM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Or are we just doing a poor job of blocking routes?

Watch his eyes. If they keep getting drawn to one corner of the board then you know to consider blocking or grabbing over there. That said, blocking isn't going to get you a win if you're the only one doing it in a 4 person game. And that's if you're ok with playing the meta-poker watch for his eyes game in the first place.

The great thing about TTR is that in the North America version at least, blocking really really does not work that well if you're doing it unilaterally; it's very difficult to block effectively and the opportunity cost to your own building is high.
Almost every time I've played with someone new in the mix I've watched them learn the ropes through the first game, and start to ask some innocently phrased questions about how blocking someone might work. This is inevitably followed by them aggressively attempting to block on their second game, having it not work out, wheedling with other players to help them, getting in a bit of a huff, before finally simmering grown and just getting on with the game.

I'm not convinced that hoarding cards is some overpowered strategy - while it's good to go for big sections of track and not fritter everything away on one and two bits, it's also easy to hang back too much and watch everything get snatched out from under you.

Finally - to complete this TTR brain dump - I think it's incredibly harsh to describe it as "just rummy". Sure, it has that mechanic, but the routes and strategising thereof are really what makes the game. There might be more serious or more involved or more trainy train games but ttr takes some beating for its ease to learn, potential strategic battling and replay value. It also doesn't suffer the feeling that more experienced players can easily hammer beginners time after time that I've often found in more sophisticated games.

The observation I usually drag out about Ticket to Ride is that there is a one-to-one correlation between cards drawn and trains placed. In one sense, the game is a race with the other players to play as many of your trains as possible before they play many of theirs. This also means that you really don't want to waste draws. I find it's nice to keep in mind all the colors of the routes you must claim while playing, so you can grab those opportunistically from the visible cards as much as possible. One should only draw from the deck if you have no choice.

However, you also must care about card-to-points efficiency. Playing six-car routes is important both because you get far more points for playing them (2.5 points per card instead of 1 point per), but also it takes far fewer turns to get those cards onto the board as cars. This is one of the reasons saving up your cards is more effective, the more you have in hand, the more likely you'll have large groups of a color and can claim a more valuable route.

Another reason saving trains is effective is because playing trains commits you to a route, whereas saving cards gives you flexibility to connect your ticket cities in more ways. Also, if multiple players are secretly saving up for the same route, you might get into a situation where you're all blocked because there are only 12 cards of each color in the deck. If you keep drawing and never get the one color you need, your opponents might be hoarding them. In that case, it can be a good idea to try a different route.

Blocking is pretty much only an effective strategy on the US map if you do it incidentally to making your own routes. To this end, it's usually best to claim the shortest parts of your routes first, since those are the ones most likely to be snagged early by other players. However, if another player grabs a route that connects to a high-value route you need, it's best to claim the long route right away, because the chances are relatively high that your opponent is going for it himself.posted by JHarris at 10:22 PM on November 5, 2014 [6 favorites]

My friend always wins his games by hoarding cards, waiting until the end to place long swaths of trains. Does anyone have a strategy to beat this?

That was my strategy for a long time, until I figured out that playing "spoiler" and just busting up every single train route I could was a better deal.

The thing about playing spoiler is you're also unlikely to win yourself, because so much of your score comes from route claiming.posted by JHarris at 10:33 PM on November 5, 2014

I picked this up on iPad a while back and have enjoyed it greatly. So when my exceedingly-talented-at-board-games friend invited me to join a group and help break in his brand new copy of TTR, I was FINALLY able to trounce him at something. He was very pleasant about the whole thing, while I was KING OF GLOAT CITY ON MY HIGH GLOATING HORSE.

I have a fondness for Ticket to Ride, but am never eager to play it. The main way you interact with other players: by blocking them, doesn't actually feel that fun to me because you are basically ruining their day for no gain for yourself. If you both want the same pathway then that can feel a little more fun, but even then I don't get much enjoyment in happening to lay down my cards before another player: I just feel mean in a way I don't in other games.

I think maybe it can be because your game can essentially be ruined by a handful of trains in the wrong place. While it can lead to whacky reroutes, sometimes it just means you've lost, and you know it, fairly early on because you can't complete a large ticket.posted by Cannon Fodder at 12:27 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Ticket to Ride definitely has a similar shortcoming to Dominion inasmuch as the only interaction with the other players comes in the form of indirectly inconveniencing them, rather than pure parallel play (even more boring) or directly messing with their stuff (way more fun). That might be part of why when TTR is floated, I don't often say no outright, but have been a bit hesitant at times to commit myself to two hours of it when it does tend to be a little less interesting.

I also accidentally figured out what turned out to be the game-breakingly dominant strategy for Splendor on my first play by simply going for what seemed to me to be the optimal strategy at the time, so I dunno.posted by DoctorFedora at 1:05 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Sometimes watching the people you most love and value in the world getting upset over little plastic trains is a win in and of itself.

This can be somewhat antisocial.

People play games for many reasons, but one of the more common ones, and the reason the best games are made, is in order to test one's strategy, to come up with a good way of playing it and to test it against friends. This style of playing demands that all the players make a good faith effort to try to win. People in your group are not getting upset "over little plastic trains." They're getting upset because you are refusing to treat the game seriously, which is ultimately refusing to treat them seriously. The trains are just markers; the actual game is ethereal, a consensual reality, and you only get out of it what you put in.

For beer-and-pretzel games like Munchkin this isn't a big deal, but your better class of strongly designed game isn't meant to be treated so casually. I can imagine groups that would simply choose to exclude you for doing it. In our circle we had a player who ruined Carcassonne for everyone by, the moment he decided he wasn't going to win, taking it out on the player he hated the most, devoting his remaining efforts to ensuring he didn't win either.

Ticket to Ride is fairly light, so this isn't really a huge problem. Also, because you can't be sure you're actually blocking anyone. But for a game like Puerto Rico, which is intricately designed and relies on all the players making a strong attempt to win, this attitude can be deadly to the other players' enjoyment.

That might be part of why when TTR is floated, I don't often say no outright, but have been a bit hesitant at times to commit myself to two hours of it when it does tend to be a little less interesting.

If it takes you two hours to play Ticket To Ride, you're probably doing it wrong. I don't think we've ever had a game that lasted more than an hour. This is one of its greater strengths, it's over with relatively fast, so a player with a commanding lead will win without much additional ceremony, and the losing players can try again quickly.posted by JHarris at 1:14 AM on November 6, 2014 [19 favorites]

TTR Europe fixes that problem, Cannon Fodder. It's one of the reasons I like the Europe map better.

But then again I also liked Race for the Galaxy better *before* the second expansion, so maybe I am not that big on "interaction" with other players.

In my opinion, TTR is hands down the best game for newbie players. It's quick to teach, fun to play (especially the first few times), and easy to understand. If you host game nights that often draw new people, it's invaluable.posted by nat at 1:25 AM on November 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Oh man I just spent 3 hours playing Ora et Labora, which is such a brain burner I am totally jealous of anyone playing TTR. Or even TransAmerica.

(Someone in my group has a 8-player chess clock type timer, and we found TransAmerica was playable with 45 seconds on each person's clock. Like for all your moves total for the whole game.)posted by aubilenon at 1:28 AM on November 6, 2014

This style of playing demands that all the players make a good faith effort to try to win.

Alternative 1: The game is flawed, in that a victory can be denied to other players easily, which means that rational players will do this, which means that the game isn't that much fun.

Alternative 2: The tactics employed by the other players aren't as good as they think they are because they can't overcome this tactic. "I can so win at Noughts and Crosses, but you have to play in the side squares or you're cheating!"posted by alasdair at 1:40 AM on November 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

But then again I also liked Race for the Galaxy better *before* the second expansion, so maybe I am not that big on "interaction" with other players.

Thing is, I am happy to play interaction low games. I love Race, and much prefer it without the expansion (although partially thats because I think the interaction in Race is elegant (guessing what actions other players are going to use) and doesn't need changing). I think my frustration with Ticket is that it isn't a terribly interesting solitaire game, as you can follow the following algorithm reasonably succesfully

1)Collect the cards you need to complete your routes efficiently as possible (ideally making it one long route to win longest route, but this may not always be possible)
2)If it looks like you will be blocked from a route, lay down track to avoid this
3)Otherwise, do not lay track until you have all the cards you need
4)When you have completed/are very near completing your routes, provided you have enough trains, get more routes.
5)If game end, end. If not, go to 1.

The most difficult part of this algorithm is 2: determining if you will be blocked or not, and fundamentally this is where the interesting (and interactive) part of the game comes. But my problem is that I don't really like this: getting blocked feels stressful, and blocking others feels mean. Worse yet, because its essentially requires reading someone's mind (or memorising the routes) it doesn't feel like a rewarding piece of gameplay.

Essentially my issue with TTR is that if I am playing with gamers, I can play a more interesting and rewarding game. If I am playing with non gamers, that above strategy combined with my deeper knowledge of the game will ensure I win every single time! For that reason if I want to play a "gateway" game I prefer something which actually has a bit more randomness, like Settlers, so new players can beat me, or something simply enough and fun enough, like Carcassone or For Sale that new players might beat me first time (technically by being a cut throat castle and farm stealer you can destroy new players in carcassone, but you don't have to play that way, and if you don't it becomes much more level).

Incidentally, if you do not own For Sale I thoroughly recommend it. It's a fast, clever card game, that is very easy to grasp and plays quickly enough that losing doesn't feel too bad.posted by Cannon Fodder at 1:46 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Alternative 1: The game is flawed, in that a victory can be denied to other players easily, which means that rational players will do this, which means that the game isn't that much fun.

Alternative 2: The tactics employed by the other players aren't as good as they think they are because they can't overcome this tactic. "I can so win at Noughts and Crosses, but you have to play in the side squares or you're cheating!"

Usually this isn't the case though. Most Eurogames are designed so that they are not zero sum unless you have two players. Attacking someone often actually doesn't benefit you, but certainly hurts another player. This means that if you do attack anyone, it should be the leader. In TTR, you absolutely can play as a blocker: trying to cut off everyone's routes. But you will have wasted trains doing this for little points, so probably won't win. Everyone else will keep on playing, and one of them will win. So where's the problem? Well

a)part of the fun is playing the game as its meant to be played, and you've undermined that
b)Your actions are likely to have hurt some players more than others, meaning that the victory of whichever player happens to be least effective feels less meaningful.

The most clear example of this is in a wargame like Risk. With three players, A B and C, A could decide that they has a vendetta against B, and throw all their forces against B. This will hurt B and hurt A. As a result, C wins. Of course, thanks to the (poor) design of Risk this is actually kind of inevitably what ends up happening, although usually on a less grand scale (A over reaches against B, or has a run of bad luck, leaving C to win). In Eurogames you can win without this behaviour.

However! This isn't always true, and can be a big problem in Eurogames which isn't really solvable. In a lot of eurogames you can get to a position in the last third (or sometimes even last half) of the game where it is clear that either A or B can win. C simply cannot win, but often the choices they make can impact on whether A or B wins. They become the "kingmaker". Now C probably has an action which maximises their points, which they could do, but it is likely that this course of action will help either A or B. My usual position when I am kingmaker is that I will play as if I am in a tournament where my points get counted, and still do what makes the most sense to me, as otherwise I have to pick favourites.posted by Cannon Fodder at 1:54 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Alternative 2: The tactics employed by the other players aren't as good as they think they are because they can't overcome this tactic. "I can so win at Noughts and Crosses, but you have to play in the side squares or you're cheating!"

Oh, also! Bad player tactics can encourage boring play. Texas Hold Em poker is a great example of this. In Texas hold em you see 5 cards on the table and you have two cards in hand. The basic strategy to play is to analyse people's bets to assess which cards they have in their hands. This is complicated by the fact that people can bluff, which you have to take account of.

However, with newer players you will see plays that simply make no sense. New players will not know the value of their cards, not know the probability of seeing the hands they want and, on more than one occasion, won't even realise they have a better hand than they think! Essentially, they end up betting most of the time. You'd think beating these players would be easy, and it is, but the strategy to beat them is incredibly tedious. You basically just wait until you have a good hand, then bet, knowing that the new player will call you, and you will probably win. But this is absolutely boring! A lot of the fun plays have just ceased to exist, and sure you can win, but you're not having a fun time (unless you are a card shark, and are in it to take this person's money I suppose!)

This dynamic is true in a lot of games: in TTR by playing a blocking strategy you shut down lots of plays people might have, and considering how basic TTR is, that's not that many.

My partner and I really enjoyed the Nordic expansion, until uh someone figured out that it's possible to cut the board in two using like five train cars, making it impossible to finish any route between the Helsinki area and the rest of the board.

Use the Station rules from TTR Europe. All you need are 3 tokens per player (in their colour) to proxy in for the stations, and the rules. Stations cost you points and some cards to use but allow you, at the end of the game, to use an opponent's city-to-city link for completing your destination tickets.posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:04 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Cannon Fodder, absolutely. Essentially, I don't like Eurogames for that reason: too often you can clearly have no chance of winning from a relatively early point, but you're stuck in the game until the end: no getting eliminated.

There's a reason that games that have been popular over the long term (centuries) are either two-player or based mainly on luck: kingmaking is poisonous. So you have to have house rules, like "don't make this kind of play" or "play as though you still have a chance of winning". You're trying to "fix the game" to make it fun.

But there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. You just have to make sure everyone is playing according to the same etiquette in your group, and y'all are getting out of it what you want to get out of it. My old teenage game group, for example, would never have played TTR because we delighted in annoying each other, and would all frustrate each others' play. That's not wrong, it just means that game was wrong for us. Now I'm older and in a different set, I do play with other people and employ official and unofficial house rules like "don't always make the best move if it makes people sad".

These house rules may even be superior ways to play the game! But it's equally valid to want to play differently, for your group and your circumstances and your goals. If that means annoying everyone else, that's fine if the game allows it. (And indeed, encourages it in this case, since it's an explicit tactic.)

Of course, they might not play with you again. Correct play is not always the best social play. That's why you go easy on first-time players, for example.posted by alasdair at 2:19 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

getting blocked feels stressful, and blocking others feels mean

This is why you need to play Settlers first, then you can just think back on how they dicked you over on that essential road and then you can laugh in their faces as you put the trains on the map.posted by biffa at 2:22 AM on November 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Note: Ticket to Ride was designed by Alan Moon, who, by all accounts, seems to be a standup guy and has designed other good games as well.posted by mecran01 at 2:23 AM on November 6, 2014

The forum member concludes his analysis by noting that there were “3 missing turns for Kenneth in this game”. Another poster states that while watching the live stream, he realized that at some point Pauelson attempted to play twice in a row and Heilfron, who was showing signs of fatigue, did not notice.

Damn, that's some Munchkin-level cheating right there. It's something that could simply laugh a intentional cheater out of a regular game, but doing it at the tournament level and expecting to get away with it takes both nerve and stupidity.posted by Spatch at 3:52 AM on November 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

"What is the Diana Jones Award trophy?: The Diana Jones trophy was originally created by the UK office of TSR Hobbies in the mid-1980s, to commemorate the expiration of that company's licence to publish the Indiana Jones Role-Playing Game and the subsequent destruction of all unsold copies of the game. It was liberated from TSR Hobbies by forces unnamed and subsequently came into the custody of a member of the Diana Jones committee. The trophy is a four-sided pyramid made of Perspex, standing ten centimetres high and mounted on a wooden base. Sealed within the Perspex are the burnt remains of the last copy of the Indiana Jones RPG, including two still-recognizable cardboard ‘Nazi™’ figures, as recorded in gaming folklore. The Diana Jones committee believes that a trophy that embodies the destruction of the last copy of one of the games industry’s most unloved and least-mourned products is a suitable symbol for the aims of the Diana Jones Award."

"Who is Diana Jones?: Nobody. The only visible part of the Indiana Jones logo within the trophy has been burnt away so that it reads Diana Jones, and the award takes its name from that."posted by kyrademon at 4:52 AM on November 6, 2014 [13 favorites]

Wait, so his cheating was the equivalent of moving a chess piece when your opponent goes to the bathroom? How is that even possible in online play? I was expecting some nefarious conspiracy like running the Ticket to Ride equivalent of Deep Blue.posted by pravit at 5:06 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I have literally never seen another physical copy aside from the very old copy my wife brought to our marriage, but Eurorails was the original version of this game, and I've enjoyed playing it much more than Ticket To Ride. It's ferociously complicated--with 4 players, a game will take 4 hours easily. But you draw on the board with crayons! And make jokes about resources from the former Soviet bloc! It's also really easy to accidentally back yourself into a corner where you burn 4+ turns drawing cards to try to get yourself out of (self-imposed) trouble with load cards, which has led to most of the most colorful cursing I have ever heard.posted by Mayor West at 5:08 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Great post and thread! Thanks. As a train geek, but boardgame newbie, I will have to check this out.posted by Artful Codger at 5:17 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Railroad Tycoon Deluxe is one of Sid Meier's masterpieces, but the one game that beats it is Chris Sawyer's Transport Tycoon Deluxe which is a fantastic, fantastic game. It's also available, freely-modifiable and with multiplayer support, as OpenTTD.

As far as TtR expansions go, I think it's hard to beat Switzerland for 2- and 3-player games. It's a really tight, constrained map, with some interesting rules twists, and makes for a much more interesting game than the default USA map (which I think is kinda boring at lower player counts due to how open it is). My wife and I can play a 2-player game in like 30 minutes on it, and it's really enjoyable.posted by tocts at 5:29 AM on November 6, 2014

I found with the Swiss version I had to take out the duplicate country-to-country destination tickets because it's silly to be able to pick up an exact duplicate of ticket you already have.posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:47 AM on November 6, 2014

Wait, so his cheating was the equivalent of moving a chess piece when your opponent goes to the bathroom? How is that even possible in online play?

The game was live on an actual board. The broadcast was filmed.posted by Etrigan at 5:53 AM on November 6, 2014

Do you like trains? How about corporate domination? How about betraying your closest friends and family? Do you enjoy being petty for the sake of petty because— why the fuck not, what can you do? I've got a game for you!

Like all great games I both love this game and hate this game.posted by Fizz at 5:57 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Sounds like I need to pick up TTR Europe, then.

Another tough iOS async game tactic used on me is when they simply take the least amount of small route cards, then play as many 6 paths connected as possible to make out points even while completing no routes.posted by Buttons Bellbottom at 6:01 AM on November 6, 2014

I love Ticket to Ride, though I definitely prefer it at the more players end of things. I like relatively non-interactive games but when you're playing two or three player I think it's a little boring.

Mayor West, we've played EuroRails and Martian Rails and WOW the learning curve at the beginning is crazy. Super satisfying when you get the hang of it though.

If anyone would like to play online I'd be interested - memail me for my Game Center id. I play on my iPhone, not sure if that changes accessibility.posted by brilliantine at 6:25 AM on November 6, 2014

Sometimes watching the people you most love and value in the world getting upset over little plastic trains is a win in and of itself.

This can be somewhat antisocial.

Me and my four kids (now 13-20) built up a library by getting a family game at Christmas, and another for the summer. The games became the only time in the house where there was outright anger and malice -- TTR, Catan, and what brought things to a grinding halt were the three times we played Senator ... everyone . plays . nasty. We restored Concord by switching to collaborative games like Pandemic and Forbidden Island -- the social interaction is great and nobody is crying at the end.posted by cgk at 6:36 AM on November 6, 2014

TTR is the game that reignited my childhood love of board games. When I was a kid, I swear I spent a good 75% of my waking hours wandering around the house and trying to convince a sibling/parent/inanimate object to puuhhhlllllleaasse just play a round of Mastermind, or Clue, or Monopoly with me. I think one of the reasons that to this day I adore Christmas more than anything in the world is that this was the one time of year when I was guaranteed to get "Yesses" to my incessant asks, with the added bonus of having an increased player pool of cousins and aunts and uncles to draw from, and the ability to play my then-favourite all-time game Balderdash while eating pie and sipping tea after Christmas dinner.
As I got older, I never developed a playing circle outside of my family members, so I sort of lost touch with board games as a thing that is totally fun and awesome. And then one summer a few years ago, while I was visiting family before a cousin's wedding, someone pulled out a copy of TTR, and I was absolutely enamoured and hooked. I honestly had no idea that board games were still a thing! And that they were a thing that ADULTS could do! And they were a thing that could actually be both fun and challenging!
Since then, my boyfriend and I have been devouring new-to-us games at a possibly unhealthy pace (certainly not a pace that is allowing us to get any good at any single game, but there's just so much to try!). Current favourites include Carcassonne, Pandemic, and (when we're in the mood for a sustained 4-hour anxiety attack) Twilight Struggle. He and I often play the mobile version of TTR against each other while we're both at work. Only a few times has it resulted in us arriving home not speaking to each other. ;)
TTR is a pretty ideal game for beginners: easy to learn, fast to play, with just the right level of anxiousness/panic-inducing qualities to make it feel high-stakes. I've only played the US map and the Europe map, but am super interested to try some of the two-player friendly expansions.
Yay!posted by Dorinda at 7:07 AM on November 6, 2014 [5 favorites]

Great, now we have to deal with #boardgamergate?

It doesn't upset me to think that Mr. Pauelsen won't sleep with me, and I don't plan to send him death or rape threats. So I'm going with no on this one.

My friend always wins his games by hoarding cards, waiting until the end to place long swaths of trains. Does anyone have a strategy to beat this?

Any chance you're playing with 2 or 3 players? If so, are you aware of the rule that, in a 2- or 3-player game, for pairs of cities that are connected by two parallel tracks, only one of those two may be claimed?

Don't know if that's the case for you or not, but sometimes people aren't aware of that rule, and playing without it leaves the board way too wide open in a 2- or 3-player game.posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:47 AM on November 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Oh my gosh I HATE this game. It is designed to be exactly the sort of thing I like (old timey! geography! trains!), but it involves the thing I hate most of all: intentionally screwing up other people's plans and then laughing in their faces about it while they are forced to play out the rest of the game knowing they have already lost and so everything is pointless.

So many of my dear friends and family love this game, and at some point I'm just going to have to use the Miss Manners "that just won't be possible" response when I get invited to play. Maybe if I volunteer to read Agatha Christie books set on trains out loud I can get an exemption, I don't know.posted by a fiendish thingy at 7:52 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think the reason we love it so much is that its very accepting of newbs. I'm a gamer, I play a lot of card/strategy games. My wife does not. So this is a very good game for us to play since it doesn't require extensive practice at card/board games. Not to say that she isn't smart, because shes very smart (she has a degree, and is going for an advanced one, I do not have any degree) but this is more my area of entertainment.

And she does beat me a a good number of times, and I don't think any of that is luck based. I still have the upper hand because I enjoy card theory(as in M:tG) and odds and the like, but it isn't something that a new player is going to be utterly destroyed a thousand times before they get proficient at it.posted by Twain Device at 8:47 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I love Ticket to Ride! My partner loves board games, especially complicated ones that require tons of remembering of rules and lots of strategy, and I'm terrible at those, but I'm pretty good at TTR!posted by xingcat at 8:56 AM on November 6, 2014

I hate games with intentional messing with other players baked in to the gameplay but if you play TTR with the right crowd it's not like that at all. I love this game.

My friends do have a habit of "forgetting" to explain key rules to new players for games like this though, which meant that my boyfriend lost the first time we played and now he hates it. So I have no one to play with! I do play on iOS on my phone though and I really enjoy it.posted by sockermom at 9:03 AM on November 6, 2014

So the way I play TTR: Nordic (I don't know the other maps well enough to pull this off) is to think of the game as consisting of two phases:

The opening, wherein I try to claim as many of the key connections between parts of the board as possible, without regard to whether or not they're useful for the tickets I'm holding. It helps that Nordic has a bunch of really important connections that are only one or two train cars long.

Then, once the short blockers are claimed, only then do I start collecting tickets and trying to complete routes.

As a social thing, this feels less violent than most blocking play, since it's not like I'm trying to interfere with lines that other people are building, and it's not like the blocking connections aren't going to be useful to me down the road, once I figure out where I'm going. Each move also at least feels tactically sound, since it seems less like I'm wasting trains and more like I'm building potential for future development, making it less likely , later on, that I'll end up drawing tickets I can't use.

Is this strategy not valid in higher-level play, or is it just an artifact of the playstyle of the groups I play with, or an artifact of me mostly playing two and three player games, or what?posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:13 AM on November 6, 2014

This style of playing demands that all the players make a good faith effort to try to win. People in your group are not getting upset "over little plastic trains." They're getting upset because you are refusing to treat the game seriously, which is ultimately refusing to treat them seriously. The trains are just markers; the actual game is ethereal, a consensual reality, and you only get out of it what you put in.

Yeah yeah! I definitely get the most fun out of not trying to win. My tendency toward playing for "interesting times" rather than necessarily "winning" has created a really interesting meta-game when I'm playing with my SO and other folks, since she plays for competitiveness and thoughtful strategy, and I play like a drunk orc. It's super fun watching her gauge what exactly my motivation is and building her plans accordingly, and feels very intimate, like my mind is a puzzle-box she's clicking around while Pinhead chills over in the corner.posted by Greg Nog at 9:16 AM on November 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

You Can't Tip a Buick: Is this strategy not valid in higher-level play, or is it just an artifact of the playstyle of the groups I play with, or an artifact of me mostly playing two and three player games, or what?

On the Europe board, I've never found blocking useful unless the blocking route is also one that's going to help me fill out my starting tickets. I mean yeah, Berlin to Essen (2 trains) is pretty important to two different starting routes, so if you don't have those, burning 2 trains to force (possibly) two other players to the long way through Frankfurt or Amsterdam may be good, but you're also opening up the possibility that someone starts building in an area that's important to you connecting your first set of destinations. Maybe the competition-level players have done their homework and figured out blocking (even when it's not in your normal path) is in fact the right way to go, but I've been pretty successful playing online without ever blocking unless it was easily connected to my normal route. (This is especially true with the 10-point bonus for the longest contiguous path that exists in the European map.)posted by tonycpsu at 9:24 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Oh my gosh I HATE this game. It is designed to be exactly the sort of thing I like (old timey! geography! trains!), but it involves the thing I hate most of all: intentionally screwing up other people's plans and then laughing in their faces about it while they are forced to play out the rest of the game knowing they have already lost and so everything is pointless.

Then Ticket To Ride should be great for you, because in the basic game wasting trains intentionally to block a route that another player may or may not have is nearly always a bad move.

This might be different for that version of the game which is two-player only, which I forget what it is right now, maybe Nordic, but maybe something else. I've only had the chance to play that once though.posted by JHarris at 9:54 AM on November 6, 2014

If I want to play this on my iPhone, there seems to be two options: Ticket to Ride pocket and Ticket to Ride Euro pocket. Any suggestions on which one is better for a newbie?posted by raeka at 10:16 AM on November 6, 2014

I find there's difference in how the maps play but I'm not really sure if either one is better for newbies. I'd choose Europe but that's just because I think it's a more interesting map than the US one (and has stations which can cancel out blocking moves).posted by EndsOfInvention at 10:45 AM on November 6, 2014

I can't believe that someone so underhanded would ruin a game of Ticket to Ride like this.

Actually I'm not quite sure it was intentional. I mean how is it that both the other player and the referee were fatigued enough that this guy managed to take two extra turns? In a championship game? Presumably the cheating player was fatigued too; maybe it was an accident? Like, everyone had been playing Ticket To Ride all day long and were just zoned out? How does someone intentionally take extra turns discreetly enough to avoid detection?

That's the kind of thing that doesn't happen in our casual games, unless something happens to distract everyone. In any case, it seems like the thing to do is to declare a misplay and play the game again.posted by JHarris at 11:20 AM on November 6, 2014

If I want to play this on my iPhone, there seems to be two options: Ticket to Ride pocket and Ticket to Ride Euro pocket. Any suggestions on which one is better for a newbie?

Start with the U.S. version -- Euro adds a few new rules without changing any of the old ones, so it's like learning to drive with an automatic transmission vs. a manual.posted by Etrigan at 11:25 AM on November 6, 2014

As someone who's only really played Europe and a little bit of USA, are there any other maps / expansions that add any new game mechanics, or are they mostly just different sets of cities, tickets, etc.? I'm thinking of things like tunnels and ferries, or the European express bonus.posted by tonycpsu at 11:28 AM on November 6, 2014

As someone who's only really played Europe and a little bit of USA, are there any other maps / expansions that add any new game mechanics

The India / Switzerland combo-pack adds some interesting stuff.

For Switzerland, it uses tunnels (like Europe, I think, but I'm not as familiar -- you can only use wilds on tunnels). Probably a bigger deal, it also has multi-destination tickets (they're country to country tickets, and there's multiple ways in/out of each country). It's also only 2-3 player, so it's very tight even at 2-player.

For India, it uses ferries (again, I think like Europe, with required numbers of wild cards). It also adds a "mandala bonus", which gives you bonus points for completing tickets with two separate non-overlapping routes. The number of tickets you do this for makes the bonus go up (it maxes out at 40 points I believe). It's interesting, but kinda gimmicky; I don't see it often being a good strategy. It's still an interesting map, though.posted by tocts at 11:40 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Ticket to Ride Märklin adds passengers, which rewards early building.

Ticket to Ride Asia adds 2v2 (or even 2v2v2) team play which absolutely changes the heck out of everything.posted by aubilenon at 11:50 AM on November 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Oh my gosh I HATE this game ... it involves the thing I hate most of all: intentionally screwing up other people's plans and then laughing in their faces about it while they are forced to play out the rest of the game knowing they have already lost and so everything is pointless.

No, actually, that would be Diplomacy, and the suffering lasts an entire day.

TtR stands alongside Lords of Waterdeep as my absolute favorite iPad board game translations. DrAstroZoom is the ID, if you're ever interested.posted by DrAstroZoom at 6:11 PM on November 6, 2014

I so wanted to like Lords of Waterdeep but it's just so shallow a game. There doesn't seem to be a lot of strategy to it.posted by Pope Guilty at 7:53 PM on November 6, 2014

The expansion adds a ton of depth, fortunately. especially the skullport part of it, with the new corruption mechanic.

I have beef with the undermountain part of the expansion because I think the 40 point quests are unbalanced.posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:54 PM on November 6, 2014

For the record I was one of the playtesters in TTR: India. The Mandala bonus isn't meant to be overwhelming - just to provide a couple of extra possible strategies. And people who think that TTR isn't interactive enough should try 3 player TTR: India - which has a lot of knife fighting and blocking. (People who want a polite game should avoid the map like the plague). It's a slightly less vicious map than it was at the playtest where I managed negative points...posted by Francis at 4:46 AM on November 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

I love the team variant in Asia. The no-communication rule makes for some interesting play.posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:30 AM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

I love the team variant in Asia. The no-communication rule makes for some interesting play

That's pretty standard for partner games (e.g., bridge, tichu, &c.) and is pretty important for ensuring that each player is actually playing the game, rather than just being told what to do by the partner who thinks they know better.

Both those other games have some semi-elaborate conventions you can use to communicate some information through in-game actions. I've never seen any talk of similar sets of conventions for TtR Asia. Hmmm!posted by aubilenon at 11:52 AM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

The closest we've come is arranging the shared cards in a specific way (like if I put a bunch of reds and greens together over my side it probably means I want to use them later), and some "*cough* *cough* John stop chatting and pay attention to what I'm doing on my go, John, JOHN PAY ATTENTION"posted by EndsOfInvention at 12:41 PM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Ticket to Ride's victory to become the first board-game to win the Diana Jones Award was a considerable upset. When I set up the DJA in late 2000 I recruited the committee from people I knew and respected in the RPG and adventure-games world, which was the world where I knew people. They brought their biases and preferences with them, which is reflected in the winners and shortlists from the first few years. Then Ticket to Ride came out and broke through that with a combination of quality, accessibility and pure playability, and we went yeah, this is the one.

Having said that, I prefer to play the first train-game to win the Spiel des Jahres, Railway Rivals. RR is extraordinary: you read the rules and it appears to be slightly less complicated and strategic than the Game of Life, and the entire second half of the game looks like it boils down to an hour of pure random dice rolling. But by the end of that hour you'll have a room of grown adults, experienced game players, some game designers, shouting out loud when they roll a six. It is a terrific game, very pure in the simplicity of its pleasures. Possibly my favourite SdJ winner.

Railway Rivals is out of print. I know the guy who owns the rights, have known him since the 1980s, and have approached him about getting it back into print. He won't even acknowledge my emails.posted by Hogshead at 2:01 PM on November 7, 2014 [4 favorites]

The closest we've come is arranging the shared cards in a specific way (like if I put a bunch of reds and greens together over my side it probably means I want to use them later), and some "*cough* *cough* John stop chatting and pay attention to what I'm doing on my go, John, JOHN PAY ATTENTION"

I'm not sure I consider that kosher. How you hold your cards, where you place the shared cards, how long you take to make your move, and any meaningful glances, all seem to violate the spirit of the rules, which is that your communication about plans and private information is limited to what you can convey through the game mechanics. So if you picked up a red face up card, it's totally legit for your partner to interpret that to mean you have plans for it, even if you put it in the shared card rack. Or maybe you could beforehand come up with some system where it means something different if your first goes into the shared supply or the second one does.posted by aubilenon at 2:31 PM on November 7, 2014

EndsOfInvention: "The closest we've come is arranging the shared cards in a specific way (like if I put a bunch of reds and greens together over my side it probably means I want to use them later), and some "*cough* *cough* John stop chatting and pay attention to what I'm doing on my go, John, JOHN PAY ATTENTION""

For a moment you were talking about Hanabi, whose metagame does evolve towards this sort of setup where things you know are on one side of your hand and the things you don't on the other.

Fuck, now I'm thinking of Hanabi Variants of TTR, and welp, I'M SURE NO GOOD CAN COME FROM THIS!posted by pwnguin at 11:27 PM on November 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

two from "North America," that is, the U.S.

*cough*orcanada*cough*

You forgot *cough*mexicoandalloflatinamericanorthofpanama*cough*. But both of the "North American" representatives were from the U.S., and the NA designation is pretty obviously because the organizers didn't want just one American but couldn't justify two U.S. slots when every other country got one.posted by Etrigan at 3:17 AM on November 12, 2014

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